


Home, or Something Like It

by 3stir



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Let Killua be Happy, Mild Hurt/Comfort, kids being kids, whale island
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23403484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3stir/pseuds/3stir
Summary: Killua and Alluka spend a much-needed summer vacation on Whale Island with Gon.
Relationships: Gon Freecs & Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	Home, or Something Like It

**Author's Note:**

> Written for _Downtime_ , a HunterxHunter zine. Just a little something happier than canon-- you know the drill. I'll update this with the accompanying art when I get the chance!

Whale Island doesn’t _really_ have seasons, but Killua likes to think that summer suits it best. 

The rainy spring finally fades into clear blue skies even though the temperature doesn’t change. The forest is bright and alive with greenery and sound. There’s nothing in the world like this island, its atmosphere so unique even among the other islands in the archipelago. There’s something about Whale Island that Killua can never replicate or replace. The air is that much saltier, the temperature that much warmer, the grass that much greener, on this tiny island than anywhere else he’s been.

And ever since rescuing Alluka from their shared childhood home, Killua has been to a lot of other places. He’s travelled the world several times over. He’s seen ruined cities and bustling country towns alike. He’s seen the tallest tree in the world, and he’s seen the deepest cavern drilled far into the earth. His Hunter’s License opens up the world for the two of them, a world so distant and dissonant from everything they’ve ever known back in the Zoldyck Estate. Back then, everything was all duty, and every place was the same. But now he sees the world for what it is, all the minute details, the sounds, the life around him. 

It’s so strange, just living, appreciating life, appreciating nature, instead of being an empty doll of an assassin that steals life from others in the dark nights. He feels his age now, feels what it means to be alive. They’ve seen a whirlwind of adventure without really looking back, and he wouldn’t trade the time he spent with his sister for anything. 

But there’s something about Whale Island that always tugs Killua back, something that feels a bit like coming home. Which is strange, because even though the forest at the center of Whale Island is a little bit like the forest that climbs the mountainside of the Zoldyck’s outer lands, the two places feel worlds, centuries, lifetimes apart.

While split off from Alluka and Gon, searching for the weirdest looking bug to bring back to the cottage on the hill, Killua appreciates the difference fully. He breathes in the changing sea air. He feels the pinpricks of sunlight on his arms. It’s warm here, a kind of warmth that radiates from his heart, outward. He’s never felt anything like this anywhere else. It’s always only here, only on this tiny island.

He blinks back to the unkempt path of matted grass and fallen branches. The wide forest clearing is still a few meters away, but he knows the creepiest crawlers always dwell in the shade. He turns back a few leaves here and there, climbs up into dense tangles of vines and twigs, all for nothing even a little bit out of the ordinary.

With a soft huff of clear warm air, Killua crosses his bare arms over his chest. He leans into his hip just so as he thinks, observes, and listens. Maybe he’s pouting, just a little bit. Just enough to relish in his meaningless frustration at not being able to find a cool enough bug. It’s understandably frustrating, right?

Something shifts in the air, a change so small that even Killua might have missed it if he hadn’t been so absolutely silent. He can’t sense anyone near him in this part of the forest, which in itself is suspicious.

They’re close, and they’ve both masked their presence and intent perfectly.

Nerds.

He hides his notice with the ease of deceit long melted into his bones. This isn’t at all like the life he had while with Kurapika and Leorio and Gon. He’s not running away anymore. He’s not hiding. He waits for his beloved sister to sneak up on him. The patience is freeing, somehow, like a songbird circling overhead riding the wind with a confidence that only comes with experience.

He doesn’t have to wait too long before familiar warm hands clutch at his sleeve.

“I got you, nii-chan!” Alluka’s voice rises above her laughter. Her long dark hair is falling in wispy strands from the tie at the top of her scalp, wild and unkempt from her scouting adventures in the forest all morning.

Her smile is contagious. Killua can never resist it.

“There you are!” he says, tilting his head as he tries to look at her net, “Did you find anything good?”

Her smile turns mischievous at the last second. Killua only catches it out of the corner of his eye, in a small spark of midday sunshine, before there’s a harsh tug on the back of his shirt collar. Warm fingers brush against the sweaty skin on the back of his neck, and the feeling is so familiar that his worst assassin instincts inexplicably quell. His arms try to reach back, to retaliate by tickling familiar sun-kissed sides, but he’s too late.

Gon drops something fuzzy, cold, and _alive_ down his shirt.

His shout startles a few birds from their treetop perches. Their wings beat against the falling shuffle of leaves. The greenery falls slowly to the ground and Killua jumps with every twitch from the bug on his back. It tickles him fiercely, the feeling only amplified by its coolness. Every time he tries to reach for it, it tickles him again, sending him careening into another involuntary scream and dance.

Alluka and Gon are of no help at all, both absolutely beside themselves with laughter. The traitors.

After an agonizing eternity, the bug falls out of Killua’s t-shirt. It lands among the dirt and leaves with a soft, anticlimactic thump. Killua’s left out of breath, face flushed and back itching horribly in memory, as he watches it scurry underneath some intricate tree roots.

He takes a second to gasp oxygen into his lungs, to watch the other two cling to each other in the dirt and laugh without a care in the world. It’s not the worst thing to have happened to him, not by a long shot, but Killua has an image to maintain. He has his own pride, even around the only two people in the whole world who he trusted to see it eased.

So he morphs his expression into something sinister, something crazed, before loudly proclaiming that Gon is so totally, horribly, irreversibly _dead_.

The ensuing chase _might_ have broken the sound barrier, but they were far too lost in their mirth to care.

* * *

Mito-san asks them to pick fruits from her garden after they’ve thoroughly terrorized the village with their game of tag. It’s a request so simple that it takes Killua completely off-guard, more-so than the prank he had just been the victim of. Alluka takes his dirt-stained hand and helps him wash up, his movements slow and purposeful. The sky is brighter than he can handle, out by their little cottage on the hill. The sea breeze tangles in his hair up here. The bright blue of it all threatens to float him far away, with how light he feels.

They pick strawberries carefully because those are Alluka’s favorite. Gon grabs a few blackberries, and his grin turns violet with every subtle little snack. Killua’s fingernails are sticky and beet-red from the repetitive task. His skin smells like sugar as it crackles under dried fruit juice.

He’s still floating, even when Gon throws a few molded berries in his hair, even when he giggles and throws the guts of a smashed tomato in Gon’s dark tank top. They dodge and stock up assault weapons, fruits and vegetables that have fallen from their vines. Their bunkers are rows of bright green foliage. Their shelters are row markers and the pylons for the thin wire clothesline.

Alluka doesn’t join, but she does provide commentary. Her laughter chases them like a birdsong chases the sunrise.

It isn’t long before Mito-san yells for them from the open kitchen window. Gon herds them back to the well to wash, poking Killua in different spots the whole time. Their screams of laughter are unrepentant as they splash each other at the spicket, as they submerge their arms in buckets of freshwater. When Alluka moves far enough back toward the house, Killua finally takes his revenge on Gon from the bug incident earlier.

“Wait, Gon! I think you missed a spot on your cheek,” he lies languidly, pointing to his own face when Gon turns back toward him.

The same trusting, innocent Gon walks back toward the spicket quickly, eager to rush back inside with Alluka. His grin is wide, his eyes closed in that strange way of his, as he opens his mouth to thank Killua for the save.

Killua cups his hand under the stream of water and expertly soaks Gon’s face with only a wry smile on his lips. And then they’re running again, loud and wild and free as Gon chases Killua around the grassy knoll. They don’t give up until Alluka threatens to eat their share of food. 

Their ensuing truce is timid but necessary when both of their stomachs growl at the same time. Through ragged breaths, they lean across each other’s shoulders as they walk back to Mito-san’s house. The touch is warm and familiar. It calls Killua back to long train rides and desperate adventures. Being with Gon like this is as natural as breathing, even after being apart for so long after the Zodiac incident.

Once they’re inside, bathed in more lantern-light than sunlight, Alluka takes his free hand. Their fingers fit together so naturally, so softly, that Killua can’t imagine his hand being held by anyone else ever again. And if he thinks about it too hard, it’s kind of incredible that the two of them are here right now, together.

“I’m really happy we got to visit Whale Island,” Alluka says softly, beneath the rush of noise as Mito-san and Gon move efficiently and automatically to set the table with mismatched dishes and love-tended food.

Killua blinks away to look at her, and he’s a little surprised to find that she’s already looking at him. She reads his face with a knowing smile, like there’s something more to her simple words than what they seem.

His heartbeat stutters in his chest as he admits in a whisper, “I’m really happy, too.”


End file.
